Food writer Katie Parla has dedicated her life to Roman food and hates tourist food traps. Here are her insider picks from comfort food at Tram Tram to gelato at Otaleg. Rome: eternally beautiful, eternally touristed.
In 2023, a record 35 million visitors trooped through the Eternal City to see iconic sights like the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum . Rome's restaurants are no less touristed, with lines down the ancient streets for TikTok-trending pasta alla carbonara and tourist trap restaurants with multi-language menus. Combined with central Italy's soaring summer heat, it's enough to make you lose your appetite.
We spoke to Katie Parla, renowned Rome-based food writer and tour guide, to help us skip the insanity and find Rome's best insider eats. A champion of Rome's gritty outer quartieri (districts), Parla is "obsessed" with getting visitors out of the centre. "If you need to eat Roman classics within 100ft of the Pantheon , I can help you," she says.
"If you need to sit in the Pantheon square to do it, I'm not your person." Despite her distaste for tourist food traps, Parla, who moved to Rome in 2003 and describes her 21-year "obsession" with her adopted hometown as "not rational", is forever enthusiastic about its culinary scene. "We're in such an exciting moment," she says.
"In the era of Covid, while there was a little contraction of the restaurant world, we have this resurgence now where you have pizza-by-the-slice joints [and] an incredible array of thoughtful cof.
